Hurricane Research in NOAA, We don't make the forecasts.... we make the forecasts better!

As NOAA reminds the public that the active component of hurricane season is just getting started, scientists at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, FL, are preparing for a string of new advances and exciting collaborations this summer.

An artist’s rendering of an Aerosonde flying inside the eye of a hurricane. Photo credit: Digital image © Jon Becker, Aerosonde Pty Ltd

Deep ADCP-Waves being deployed

ADCP wave height monitoring instrument being deployed off the Alabama coast in 1000 ft. of water. Photo credit: Todd Murphy, Univ. of South Alabama

Isabel sea state

A bird’s eye view of the sea state in Hurricane Isabel in 2004. Photo credit: Michael Black, AOML

Starting in mid-August, researchers from AOML will be in position and ready to test an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) in hurricanes that come within range of the launching site at Key West Naval Air Station. If proven successful in hurricane strength winds, the Aerosonde UAS will be an important operational and research tool for obtaining near surface observations in tropical cyclones at altitudes lower than traditional manned aircraft can safely fly. These critical data will be obtained in near-real time and used by NHC hurricane specialists for immediate use in public forecasts. AOML’s partners in this experiment include NOAA’s National Hurricane Center and Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the AAI Corp.

AOML’s oceanographers and hurricane scientists are teaming up to study the changing dynamics of ocean waves in relation to hurricanes off the Alabama coast in an effort to improve understanding and prediction of hurricane induced storm surge. This hurricane season, three Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers designed for shallow water wave measurements have been deployed in 20m – 30m depth water. The deployment is in preparation for any hurricanes tracking through the Gulf of Mexico this season through mid-October. The background wave climate will be observed prior to and following any tropical cyclone events. This project is a collaborative study between AOML hurricane and ocean chemistry researchers, the University of South Alabama and NOAA's Environmental Modeling Center.

This is a historic season for the Nation’s hurricane hunter fleet as the first operationally tasked U.S. Air Force WC-130J Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR) flight was flown into Hurricane Flossie. The SFMR uses passive microwave radiation to measure surface wind speeds continuously during missions, a key data component needed to accurately describe a storm's current strength. NOAA’s P-3 hurricane hunter aircraft are already outfitted with SFMR technology with plans to place one on the G-IV jet. As of this hurricane season, three of the USAF hurricane hunter fleet are equipped with SFMR’s, with a goal of one additional plane outfitted every month in 2007.

AOML recently welcomed a new hurricane modeler into its cadre of hurricane researchers, with an eventual goal of improving track, intensity and structure forecasting, combining high resolution modeling techniques with in-house observations. This new area of modeling expertise will allow researchers to test how well hurricane models can incorporate various kinds of atmospheric and oceanographic data previously excluded from traditional models. Researchers will then tweak and adapt the models so that they are able to correctly use these new types of information. The result of this new in-house collaboration between traditional hurricane research, oceanography, and hurricane modeling will hopefully accelerate improvements in public forecasts.